California Dreamin'

First up for the worried parents: Pedr’s fine, no problems, he survived the long flight over. (I hope I’m not going to have to put this at the start of every new post!). So we celebrated his surviving by going to a nice restaurant and ordering some healthy food.

Here you can see that Pedr is being very good and enjoying a balanced meal of honey bacon, whipped butter and bread.

Around a year ago we jumped on a plane to the US and spent some time with our friends Nicole & Chris. (I reckon I’m going to have to get them to do a guest post or something since they’ve been in this blog enough times). And this year we did the same thing. Well almost. We thought we should probably go to different places than last time. So this time we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. If you haven’t heard of it then you might know about the sea otters that it’s famous for rescuing.

Montery Bay Aquarium

The sea otters at Monterey Bay Aquarium are absolutely adorable.

They have a lot of them living in the area around the aquarium because of all the kelp forests growing there. The otters use them to find food and even wrap themselves in it so that they don’t float away when they go to sleep. I wasn’t sure if I believed this story until I saw a wild otter wrapped up in kelp, sleeping with his paws poking up into the air. That’s right, they have wild otters living in the sea right behind the aquarium. And plenty of binoculars and scopes so you can get a good view. We saw quite a few otters sleeping and eating shellfish while floating on their backs. And most adorably: a baby otter riding on its mother’s stomach while she floated on her back.

This picture is a baby sea otter riding on its mother's stomach. These are actually wild otters in the sea 50m from the back of the aquarium. — This picture is a baby sea otter riding on its mother’s stomach. These are actually wild otters in the sea 50m from the back of the aquarium.

Otter Rescue

They only have three otters inside the aquarium. These ones can’t be released into the wild because of injuries. But what’s great is that these three (all female) otters help raise other baby otters that have come into the aquarium’s care. So they teach them how to interact with other otters, groom themselves, and look for food. And of course how to crack shells open using rocks while they float on their backs. So it’s great to see that even though they can’t go back to the wild, these otters have a very important job in helping other otters.

We hadn't seen one of these colourful little cuttlefish before, but they're actually from Australia. — We hadn’t seen one of these colourful little cuttlefish before. But they’re actually from Australia.

Living Lava Lamps

Apart from the otters we didn’t know what else to expect from the aquarium. So when we wandered into the jellyfish section, while still pretty jetlagged, it was like walking into a room of living lava lamps. The bright colours and slow hypnotic swirling of the jellyfish meant that we spent way more time than expected staring at jellyfish. It’s so hypnotic that you can even watch a live video feed if you want.

Monterey Bay Aquarium has lots of tanks full of different types of jellyfish slowly swirling around. They're very hypnotic to watch. Like a living lava lamp. — Monterey Bay Aquarium has lots of tanks full of different types of jellyfish slowly swirling around. They’re very hypnotic to watch. Like a living lava lamp.

We weren't the only ones hypnotised by the jellyfish... — We weren’t the only ones hypnotised by the jellyfish…

Wine Time

After a day at the aquarium we decided to have a picnic at a local winery. California produces a lot wines so it sounded like a good idea. Nicole and Chris assured us that we would spend the afternoon eating cheese, drinking wine and having a good time. It was a slightly different story when we got there. Who would’ve thought that a mountain top winery in the middle of winter would be cold?

The sun pretty much disappeared when we arrived, and the wind just got stronger and stronger. But we were determined to enjoy all that scenery (hidden by clouds) and cheese so we stuck it out. Nicole and I ended up wrapped up in a picnic blanket together with our puffy jackets done up tight while the boys had to freeze. Meanwhile the wind kept blowing food and utensils around and knocking over wine glasses (yes we were going to do the wine thing properly!).

Who would've thought that a visit to a mountaintop winery in winter would be so cold? — Who would’ve thought that a visit to a mountaintop winery in winter would be so cold?

San Diego

After our failed winery picnic it was time to say goodbye and head off to San Diego. When we were over last time we visited San Francisco. And while it was a nice enough city it didn’t really grab us. San Diego was different. It had a great feel from the get go and we enjoyed strolling around. Especially in Balboa Park.

Balboa Park

There is a huge parkland in the middle of the city filled with walking trails, gardens, museums and the famous San Diego Zoo. The city created the park for an exposition in 1915, and as part of the exposition they built a whole lot of buildings in the Spanish colonial style.

It looks like fancy colonial-era church, but it was built for an exposition in 1915. — It looks like fancy colonial-era church, but it was actually built for an exposition in 1915.

Because it was for an exposition, and it was only meant to be temporary, then the build quality was a bit dodgy. So they just built them all out of timber, covered them with a thin layer of plaster to make it look like stone, and voila they had an instant colonial old-town for the exposition. But the buildings were so popular that the public demanded that they weren’t pulled down at the end of the exposition. So they kept them. But eventually the wood started rotting and buildings started to fall apart. But since they were so popular the city decided to rebuild them as permanent structures and that’s what you see today.

Another fancy colonial-era church, or is it...? — Another fancy colonial-era church, or is it…?

Fun Facts About Balboa Park

The number 1 take home fact we learnt about Balboa Park was that: for the 1935 exposition they had a nudist colony as an exhibit. It came complete with pagan rituals and a Queen of the Nudists. For a whole 25 cents you could spend the day “observing” the nudists. But it was so popular that they tripled the price to 75 cents. If you want a second fact: they imported pigeons for the 1915 exposition because they wanted it to feel more “European”.